"So— what's the good news?" he said, cutting her off.
"I used my skills and saved us a great deal of time— I decoded some dispatches from the security vault safe. They alluded to periodic maintenance for the missile silos and then I backtracked to earlier dispatches, and then I found the coordinates."
"You've been busy."
"Colonel Teal had apparently preflighted these before— after repairing them. It was easier than I'd thought it would be. And Paul, I discovered, has a natural talent for sabotage. I showed him how to set explosives for the ammo dump and the armory as well— and you should see the very neat way he crosswired the master generator control panels and landing gear panels in those aircraft. We could have used him in the KGB."
"Wonderful— wonderful for him," Rourke nodded, laughing. He couldn't quite see Paul in the KGB— nor Natalia, either, as he considered it.
"By the time we get on the ground, Paul should be through. Sabotaging was something I took a course in," she laughed.
Rourke looked at her— he said nothing. And he loved her...
Chapter Sixteen
O'Neal moved slowly, weakly, Rourke doing what he felt to be the logical thing— leave Paul with O'Neal, using the disadvantage of Paul's head injury, headache still bothering him, as an advantage to shepherd the submarine officer.
Natalia beside him now, the bomber jacket zipped against the cold of the evening, his right fist holding the CAR-15 by the pistol grip, Rourke started toward the bunker.
"There would have been a crew here— wouldn't there?" Natalia almost whispered.
Rourke didn't look at her, peering into the darkness as he walked. "No— these missiles were off line as far as I could tell— which is why they're still here and not in a billion pieces somewhere inside the Soviet Union. Cover the right."
"Yes," he heard her answer.
He heard her feet stop on the dirt and rocks across which they walked. Now he looked at her, looking at him. "You realize— I worked with Vladmir in an attempt to steal the plans for these missiles once. We learned something about them, John. The warheads cannot be dismounted from the missile bodies without totally disarming the warheads— totally. Do you know how complicated that is?"
"When I was in Latin America," he rasped. "I controlled an agent who was smuggling information on Soviet missiles out of Cuba— I know."
In the moonlight— there was always moonlight when it wasn't needed, wasn't wanted— he saw her eyes sparkle, her mouth upcurve with laughter.
He smiled at her, then turned away, walking— slowly, steadily, toward the bunker.
Rourke glanced behind him once— Paul with the Schmeisser and O'Neal carrying his .45
Government Model— were bringing up the rear.
Rourke stopped at the steel door of the bunker.
Natalia's voice: "There should be a conventional locking arrangement, then a second door inside with a double combination lock."
"Can you work the combinations— I did poorly at that in spy school."
She laughed. "On the other hand, I was very good at it— a woman has a naturally more sensitive touch— I can, but it would take perhaps a few hours without mechanical assistance— I don't think the stethoscope from your medical kit would help a great deal with the types of doors they have."
"You're well-informed," Rourke told her.
"Yes," she called back.
"Yes," he murmured, mimicking her. He turned around, shouting, "Paul— if these locks will keep us out, they'll keep anyone else out except Cole— or Teal. You and Lieutenant O'Neal— I want you—"
"John!" Natalia screamed, Rourke wheeling, from the top of the bunker where it was partially mounded over with earth, one of the wildmen lunging for him, a double-headed axe, the handle cut to hand-axe size.
Rourke took a half step back, hearing the shots from Natalia's M-16, the wildman spinning out in midair, crashing down, Rourke starting to raise his CAR-15, something hammering at him from behind. He stumbled forward under its weight, the Car-15 falling from his shoulder. He twisted his face right, jerking his head left, a Bowie pattern knife— long-bladed, cheap looking but deadly enough, he decided— hammering, stabbing, biting into the ground beside his face. Rourke jabbed his right elbow, the arm already extended, back, the elbow connecting with something solid, Rourke feeling the weight sag from his back, rolling, snatching the Detonics .45
from under his left armpit, jacking back the hammer, firing at the face three feet away from his hand. The wildman's head exploded, blood spattering upward. Rourke pushed himself back, up, getting to his feet from a crouch, wheeling, still crouched, pumping the trigger of the Detonics
.45 simultaneously with hearing a burst from Natalia's M-16 and Rubenstein's Schmeisser, the wildman running from the top of the mound twitching, twisting, falling, tumbling to the ground. Rourke started to reach down for his fallen Colt assault rifle.
Another burst of gunfire from the M-16, a long ragged burst from the German MP-40.
Rourke wheeled toward the sound of the subgun, wildmen rushing toward Paul and O'Neal. Rourke extended his right hand, his fist balled tight on the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Detonics. He squeezed the trigger once, then once again, two of the wildmen going down, one of them at least-clutching at his throat— dead.
Rourke started to look back toward Natalia, something hammering at him as he did.
A wildman, the man nearly twice his size, he judged as they hit the ground, Rourke's right fist opening involuntarily as his elbow smacked against a small rock. The feeling in his right hand—
it was gone for an instant.
His left hand hammered up, finding the fleshy gut of the man on top of him. Nothing happened as Rourke hammered his fist in hard.
On his back, Rourke snapped his left knee up, hammering it against bone, then snapping it up again, feeling the squish of testicles, hearing the scream of pain, feeling the rush of air from the man's lungs against his face, the breath foul-smelling. The man had the beginnings of diabetes, Rourke diagnosed, hammering his knee up again, another scream and another rush of the fetidsmelling breath. Rourke rolled half right, jabbing his left elbow back into the side of the wildman's face.
He could see Natalia, the M-16 on the ground, two of the wildmen backing her against the bunker, her pistols in her hands. "Look out— Natalia!"
She started to turn, a wildman from the mound on top of the bunker jumping for her, one of the men nearest to her reaching for her, both pistols discharging, the body falling against her.
He lost sight of her for a moment as he tried crawling from underneath the screaming man half covering his chest. Then Rourke saw her, the pistols gone from her hands, her left hand brushing a thick lock of her almost black hair back from her forehead, in her right hand the Bali-Song knife flashing open, her body seeming to form itself, shape itself into a duelist's stance, the knife flashing out hard, coming back, then stabbing outward again, snapping back, one of the two wildmen she still fought screaming and toppling forward across the man she'd shot.
The still standing wildman had a machete— he was advancing toward her.
Rourke crawled— the hands of the wildman on top of him still clawing at him, the feeling coming back into Rourke's right hand, his left arm pinned under the wildman, his right hip with the Python under him, the holster slipped back on the belt and too far behind him for him to reach.
The first Detonics— two shots should still remain, he told himself.
Another burst of subgun fire— Paul and 0'Neal, a burst of gunfire from an M-16 as well, a scream of pain, a curse.
The Detonics was inches only from the tips of Rourke's fingers as he clawed the ground, feeling the wildman on top of him digging his teeth into his thigh. Rourke moved his left hand—